Category: Prayer/Spirituality

All that glitters is not gold

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Memorial of St. Albert the Great, 15 November 2019

Wisdom 13:1-9 <*(((>< ><)))*> Luke 17:26-37

A street performer in Tamsui, Taiwan delights tourists and residents alike, January 2019.

How true are these words by Shakespeare and other men of letters: we have all to be careful because not all that is shiny and impressive is valuable.

Looks can always be deceiving that we must always probe deeper until we find the Ultimate Good, God.

For they search busily among his works, but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair. But again, not even these are pardonable. For if they so far succeeded in knowledge that they could speculate about the world how did they not more quickly find its Lord?

Wisdom 13:7-9
From Google.

May the Universal Doctor, St. Albert the Great, guide us and enlighten our minds and our hearts to seek first Jesus Christ in the most Holy Eucharist “because it bestows the fullness of grace on us in this life” (Breviary, November 15, commentary by St. Albert the Great on the gospel of St. Luke).

I also thank you Most Sweet Jesus on this day as we celebrate our 22nd anniversary of ordination as Deacons. I still remember the great fear and fright I felt thinking of the immense responsibilities as a Deacon in preparation to our ordination to the Priesthood.

And yes, Lord Jesus, there were many occasions since then until now when we are blinded by so many shining things in the ministry that are not really you nor the Father.

Send us your Holy Spirit that we may seek you always and follow you by lovingly serving others in your name. Amen.

True mobility is in Christ Jesus

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Thursday, Week XXXII, Year I, 14 November 2019

Wisdom 7:22-8:1 ><)))*> <*(((>< Luke 17:20-25

Photo by Mr. Chester Ocampo, 2019.

Praise and glory to you, O Lord our mighty God!

We keep on searching for so many things in this life to make us more “upwardly mobile” in life: knowledgeable and affluent, healthy and everything.

Nice.

But in our pursuits, we miserably fail becoming better persons for eventually, everything ends up with about money and material things, prestige and fame.

We forget you, O God who is Wisdom beyond compare.

For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion, and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity.

Wisdom 7:24

Let us find you right here in our hearts, in Christ Jesus who had come to dwell within us. Amen.

Forgetting God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Wednesday, Week XXXII, Year I, 13 November 2019

Wisdom 6:1-11 ><)))*> <*(((>< Luke 17:11-19

Altar of the Carmelite Monastery, Guiguinto, Bulacan, 12 November 2019.

Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us when most of the time we are more like the nine other lepers you have healed than the lone Samaritan who returned to thank you.

How easily we could forget your goodness and kindness to us!

Worst, when we are strong and powerful, in total control of almost everything in life, we deliberately forget that we share only in your authority.

Let us heed your reminder today:

Hear, O kings, and understand; learn, you magistrates of the earth’s expanse! Hearken, you who are in power over the multitude and lord it over throngs of peoples! Because authority was given you by the Lord and sovereignty by the Most High, who shall probe and scrutinize your counsels!

Wisdom 6:1-3

May we come out clean and pure before you in our exercise of your power and authority. Amen.

Let your mystery, God, embrace me…

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Tuesday, Memorial of St. Josaphat, 12 November 2019

Wisdom 2:23-3:9 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 17:7-10

Our altar at St. John Evangelist Parish, 12 Nov. 2019.

Let your mystery embrace me, Lord.

Better, let me be wrapped in your mystery, Lord!

So many times, I have always tried to analyze everything – myself, my life, including you, O God.

And I have realized that most of the time, this is because I cannot trust you completely.

I am afraid of being lost, of being hurt, of failing.

Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love; because grace and mercy are with his holy ones, and his care is with his elect.

Wisdom 3:9

Dearest God, help me to live life, instead of analyzing it.

Reflect on its wonder and mystery but eventually, let me be wrapped in their beauty despite its incomprehensibility, knowing you will never abandon me.

Remind me always that I am just like “the unprofitable servants” of the Gospel today who does what we are obliged to do. No need to please or be affirmed by anybody for you alone is our life.

Give us the courage, Jesus, to be like St. Josaphat to strive working for unity in ourselves, in you and with one another. Amen.

St. Josephat (+1623) was an Orthodox bishop who worked hard to unify the Ukrainian Church and Rome for which he was attacked and shot to death by local fanatics while he was praying. We pray for his intercession this coming 2020 dedicated by the CBCP as the year of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue in preparation of our 500th year of Christianization in 2021.

Prayer to cleanse our lips

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Monday, Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, 11 November 2019

Wisdom 1:1-7 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 17:1-6

Photo by jami jari on Pexels.com

It is the start of work and school today, Lord.

Thank you for our jobs, thank you for our schools, thank you for the food and clothes we have.

Thank you very much for the gift of self and most especially for the gift of others.

Unfortunately, O Lord, they are the ones we always hurt with our painful words, and yes, with all sorts of profanities.

If our words were like swords or clubs, or even at least like thorns of the cactus, everyone of us would be beaten black and blue or worst, mangled.

For wisdom is a kindly spirit, yet she acquits not the blasphemer of his guilty lips; because God is the witness of his inmost self and the sure observer of his heart and the listener to his tongue. For the spirit of the Lord fill the world, is all embracing, and knows what man says.

Wisdom 1:6-7

Bless us today, Lord, to be like St. Martin of Tours who always spoke with humility and gentility, full of wisdom and kindness to everyone. Most of all, bless us to be like him to see you Lord among everyone and treat them with respect and dignity always.

Fill us with your wisdom, Lord, especially our public figures that they may never let speak evil of anyone and be an occasion of sin as you warned in the gospel today.

Help us to bring back decency and kindness especially in our language for indeed, “from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt. 12:34).

Cleanse our lips, Lord. Amen.

Breathe on me, Lord…

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Saturday, Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran Church, 09 November 2019

Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 3:9-11, 16-17 ><)))*> John 2:13-22

“Praise be to Christ” says the floor of the Church of the Beatitudes, Galilee, Holy Land, 2019.

Our loving Father in heaven:

Thank you very much for the gift of church, especially beautiful and lovely churches where we encounter you in prayers and the sacraments.

How amazing that these churches “breathe” with their walls, “whispering” to you the many praises and thanksgiving of countless people who have encountered you there.

Whenever I come inside a church, I try to feel your presence as well as those other faithful including those who have gone home to you in heaven.

Indeed, we your “chosen people as living stones” are your buildings, your temple and dwelling place.

Whenever we enter a church, we also enter you, our God as you fill us with life like those fruitful trees saw by Ezekiel in the first reading growing on the banks of the river flowing from the temple.

Forgive us when we destroy our bodies and our communities, forgetting that we are your temple.

Forgive us when we refuse to celebrate the Sunday Mass with our fellow believers.

St. John Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, our Mother Church. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, 2017.

As we celebrate today the Feast of the Dedication of the Mother of all churches, the Major Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, remind us also to take care of our churches, to always maintain their sacredness, do away with all profanities and “shows” so many priests and lay people are now so fond of doing forgetting it is always your house, not ours.

Breathe into us your life-giving Spirit, Lord Jesus, for us to create a space within us and in our churches for you to come and renew us. Amen.

Prayer for enthusiasm

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Week XXXI, Year I, 08 November 2019

Romans 15:14-21 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 16:1-8

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa in Carigara, Leyte last September 2019.

Before everything else, O loving Father as we praise and thank you for this new day, we fervently pray for our brothers and sisters severely affected by the rains and floods up north in Cagayan as well as those displaced by the effects of earthquakes last two weeks in Mindanao.

Take care of them and make us more sensitive to their plights that we may be moved to do something concrete for them.

Like St. Paul, fill us with the same Holy Spirit, with zeal and enthusiasm to always do your work, Lord.

But I have written to you rather boldly in some respects to remind you, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in performing the priestly service of the Gospel of God, so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:15-16

Fridays for everyone is the end of school and/or work, a time to celebrate and have fun; the most welcome break of the week. But with you, Lord, you never stop working for us, with us, and in us.

Like St. Paul, fill us with yourself, O God which is the literal meaning of “enthusiasm” from the two Greek words, “en theos”, “be filled with God”.

Like St. Paul, may we never stop proclaiming you and your salvation joyfully even among those who have known you, Lord.

In this world of so much competition and rat race with no clear winners at all, make us realize like the shrewd steward in today’s gospel that being wise is giving more importance to people and persons and relationships than money and wealth. Amen.

Jesus, both the Gift and the Giver

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Thursday, Week XXXI, Year I, 07 November 2019

Romans 14:7-12 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 15:1-10

Betania Tagaytay, August 2017.

Dearest Lord Jesus:

It seems more rains are coming today as I watched the rains last night amid dark skies with only a few stars above to accompany the moon. What a sight to behold as darkness enveloped us with the trickling of rains calming my soul while listening to St. Paul:

Brothers and sisters: none of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

Romans 14:7-8

Thank you very much Lord for your wonderful gift of self to us!

Indeed, you are the gift and the giver at the same time.

Thank you for making each of us a small universe, self-contained but not totally complete if separated from you and from others. May we always share this gift of self with others by keeping us one in you and with you.

You are our “deep space”, our “big bang”, always expanding, ever growing, bursting with life and meaning.

May we not be bothered like the Pharisees and scribes when people seek you more than us for we are mere stars leading them to you.

May we search and bring back to you the other dead stars and lost stars of this universe we call life. Amen.

Modern jerusalem at dawn, April 2017.

When “I-O-U” means “I love you”

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Wednesday, Week XXXI, Year I, 06 November 2019

Romans 13:8-10 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 14:25-33

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, market in Carigara, Leyte, September 2019.

Glory and praise to you, O God, for this Wednesday!

Your words through St. Paul today are very encouraging and reassuring as well.

Brothers and sisters: owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Romans 13:8

How sad, O Lord, that these days, one of the cries and questions we either hear or ask is “where is the love?”.

Even in our personal relationships, we have forgotten love and kindness, mercy and forgiveness, always insisting on the letters of the laws disregarding the human face crying for help, crying in pain. 

We have become so materialistic and legalistic, going into the details and other nitty-gritty in life forgetting the warmth of a human face, of a person.

It is love that defines who we are; without love, we are nothing! 

Love speaks well of you, O Lord our God whom we believe in; without love, then, we have become monsters and Antichrists! 

In the midst of our many transactions today, let us keep in mind to “owe nothing to anyone except to love one another”!

As I start this day, fill me with your Holy Spirit to cleanse and purify me with your breath, with your life, with your joy. Empty me of my pride, fears, insecurities and replace these with your humility, justice and love.

Help me renounce things that I am supposed to own yet possess me in reality so that only you, Jesus, always you, Jesus whom I shall only have and share. Amen.

Love that is sincere

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Tuesday, Week XXXI, Year I, 05 November 2019

Romans 12:5-16 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 14:15-24

Photo by Mr. Chester Ocampo, October 2019.

Lord Jesus Christ, I come to you in darkness, desolate and sad with so much pains and fears. And anger.

You are the only one I can turn to, Lord.

You alone are the one who can heal me and console me.

You alone can fill me with life and love.

Like the psalmist, it is only in you, O Lord, can I find peace.

Help me to respond to St. Paul’s call today:

Brothers and sisters: Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor.

Romans 12:9-10

How can our love be sincere and not hate evil or even show honor to those who continue to do evil against us?

O sweet Jesus, give us the courage to come to your “banquet”; enable us to let go of our many excuses like those you have invited to your banquet.

It is only in communing in you, in being with you can our love be sincere, Lord, when we are able to disarm ourselves of our doubts and anxieties, fears and hatred to receive you and share you with others. Amen.